House Speaker Mike Johnson and a group of 51 other Republican representatives have formally asked President Donald Trump to permit temporary waivers to the Jones Act to end at their scheduled expiration in mid-August, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.
The waiver authority was invoked by the administration during the Iran conflict with the stated goal of alleviating supply-chain strains and ensuring the continued movement of fuel and other critical goods between U.S. ports as prices rose. The lawmakers assert that those emergency circumstances have passed, and they urged that the waivers not be extended beyond the current timeline.
In the letter, Johnson and the 51 signatories reiterated the statutory purpose of the Jones Act, which mandates that cargo transported between U.S. ports be carried on vessels that are built in the United States, owned by Americans, and operated by U.S. crews. They framed the law as an important support for domestic maritime employment and a component of national security.
The Republican letter cautioned that allowing the temporary exemptions to continue could erode the domestic coastal shipping sector by enabling foreign-flagged vessels to engage in coastal trade at times when U.S.-flagged ships are available. That concern underpinned their request that the waivers be permitted to lapse as scheduled in mid-August.
The White House did not immediately provide a response to a request for comment on the lawmakers' appeal.
Context and significance
The correspondence from the House Speaker and his colleagues places emphasis on sustaining the Jones Act's protections for the U.S. merchant marine and associated jobs. Their position is grounded in the view that the circumstances that prompted the emergency waivers - specifically supply interruptions tied to the Iran conflict and upward pressure on prices for fuel and essential goods - have abated.
The letter is a direct appeal to the executive branch on a matter that intersects maritime policy, domestic industrial capacity, and short-term crisis management tools.